Handcrafting a vibrant Arab world

Mosque Papercut Bookmark {Tutorial}

We are thrilled to be co-hosting this important initiative to get more diverse books in classrooms, libraries and homes.

Last year, we received the book Naji and the Mystery of the Dig by Vahid Imani about a Persian girl. The event organizers are in the process of looking for authors, bloggers and others. We won’t know who our author is until later in the month.

In the meantime, we wanted to make a bookmark to get ready for its’ arrival. Since the papercut Comoros Islands were a huge hit on the blog last month, we thought we’d keep the papercut theme going and try our hand at a mosque silhouette with domes and minarets.

Supplies

We started by cutting out a piece of black card stock to 3 inches x 6 inches. We placed it down on the cutting mat, then taped the mosque silhouette outline on top. My daughter used the xacto to cut out around the outline. You can be as detailed or as free flowing as you’d like.

Once the bottom of the bookmark is complete, remove the white outline paper, cut out a border and take out the “sky” above the domes and minarets.

I helped my daughter cut out stars from the left over sky parts. I made five V shapes in random sizes, all connected to each other.

Then my daughter used the xacto to cut out a piece of contact paper that was slightly larger. She folded it in half, took off the paper backing to that fold line and added the bookmark and stars.

Once the bookmark was securely taped down on one half, she took the rest of the backing and pressed it down on the fold, over the bookmark. Once the bookmark “sandwich” was secure, she trimmed off the excess pieces of contact paper.

Here is what our bookmark looks like when it was held up to the window. Which means that when you are reading, you can also be able to see the words through the night sky. My daughter can’t wait to try it out.

Be sure to stop by these other bookmark tutorials we have made to celebrate books: